ASSESSMENT OF NAVIGATIONAL SAFETY IN RESTRICTED CONDITIONS AND AREAS OF INTENSIVE SHIPPING TRAFFIC

Abstract

One of the most important problems of modern shipping is to ensure navigational safety in restricted waters and areas with intensive shipping traffic in any hydrometeorological conditions. Modern navigation is characterized by significant features, which primarily include the influence of stochastic factors on the navigation process, assessment of the navigation situation and decision-making on maneuvering by the navigator. It is these features that determine the rather high level of navigation accidents in water transport. Recently, given the special importance of water transport, significant measures have been taken to improve navigation safety, especially in limited conditions, both in marine areas and inland waterways. Such measures include, first of all, the revision of existing and adoption of new organizational and technical requirements governing safety.

This article highlights the important issue of ensuring navigational safety in restricted waters and areas with intensive shipping traffic, which is one of the key problems of modern shipping. The features of modern navigation are considered, including the influence of stochastic factors on the assessment of the navigational situation and decision-making by the navigator, which cause a high level of navigation accidents.

The article includes an overview of modern measures to improve navigation safety, which include the improvement of organizational and technical requirements governing navigation safety. However, the authors point to the existing contradiction between the ever-increasing requirements for safety of navigation and its actual state, emphasizing that the level of navigation accidents remains high despite efforts to reduce it.

The article focuses on the lack of formal methods for describing the navigation process, which is an obstacle to solving many navigation safety issues. The authors propose ways to solve this problem, which include the identification of models of navigation risks and the development of a methodology for a comprehensive assessment of navigation risks, with a description of the main properties of a qualitatively complex organizational and technical system of navigation.